MUSC 373 Journal 5

This week in music we wrote our first lesson plan, learned a new note on the recorder, and also learned new music concepts.

When writing our first lesson plan, I think that it was very helpful to be able to have it critiqued. By having it looked over and "revised," this helped me monitor my time and develop my ideas. Also, being put into groups was a great idea. This allowed everyone to brainstorm and collaborate. The hand out on How to Teach a Song is a very helpful tool. When writing my lesson plan, I can refer back to this packet for hints and ideas.

On Friday, we learned a new note on the recorder, D. We also played many songs in the recorder book that helped reinforce this new note. This was very helpful because we got to apply and practice this note right away! Altogether we now know the notes, B, A, G, C, and D.

Also on Friday, we learned about the C Major and G Major scales. We learned that in order to play the G scale, we must include F#. On Wednesday, we learned about Zoltan Kodaly. We learned a little bit about his background and his philosophy. I liked how in the beginning of class a song from the Sound of Music was playing. This correlated perfectly with Solfegee. Not only did we learn do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do, we learned hand signals that went with! This was really fun to learn because instead of being lectured this new idea, we got to sing the pitches and do the hand movements that went with. We also learned Kodaly’s rhythm duration syllables. A quarter note- ta, eight notes- ti ti, sixteenth notes- ti ri ti ri, half note- ta ah, and a whole note- ta ah ah ah. On Friday, we got to sing this new concept with our recorder music. I loved being able to actively participate in everything that we were learning in class.

I am very excited to teach my lesson plan to the class. I feel that I am well prepared and know what to do because of all the practice that we have had in class. Also, since my lesson plan was critiqued, I have an even better understanding of how to make my lesson plan even better!

I believe that it is important to know how to effectively write a lesson plan and make it relevant to children. Children will really benefit from musical experiences that are incorporated in their learning. Children typically love music, and when it is used in their daily learning, they will be able to remember concepts better and be able to apply them to other aspects in their life.